Sunday, 30 September 2012

DVD 2013 Discussion at Recon

Speaking at the Recon event today, DVD producer Dan Hall outlined some of BBC Worldwide's plans for releases during the course of next year.

With the exception of one boxed set (believed to be the Legacy set of Shada and More Than Thirty Years In The TARDIS due to come out after The Claws of Axos SE) all releases next year will be individual stories. New titles include Terror of the Zygons, The Mind of Evil and The Reign Of Terror, and there will also be (at least) four Re-Visitations (one of which is the previously announced Inferno).

The recently recovered episode Air Lock from Galaxy 4 is still in the process of being restored, but is hoped to be released alongside another title next year; the status of The Underwater Menace's episode two was not clarified, however.

During a discussion over the animation of The Reign of Terror (episode four being shown at the event), he explained that it was unlikely that more than two episodes could be animated within allocated budgets - though intimated, there were no formal announcements of further forthcoming animated episodes at present.

There was also clarification over the forthcoming Shada release, which will not be a complete version of the story. Hall explained that he felt his role was not to 'create' new (i.e. original) material and this was a decision that would need to be made by the BBC rather than BBC Worldwide - he also thought that such a project couldn't be undertaken to the required BBC quality guidelines within the budgets available to the DVD range. From a personal perspective he believed that editorially it should also remain unfinished, reflecting the series production.

The range is expected to have a story released every three weeks during 2013 leading up to the 50th Anniversary. The first DVDs of this "full schedule" will be announced in the next edition of Doctor Who Magazine.